Stein’s votes probably gave Trump Michigan and Wisconsin

If further evidence of Trump’s backstabbing of allies were needed, there’s his recent attack on Jill Stein’s recount initiative. He should be sending Stein flowers. Trump is deeply indebted to Stein’s Green Party and her siphoning votes away from Clinton.  In two of the three recount target states, Stein’s votes exceeded Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton.

Here’s the numbers:

State                                      Trump margin                                  Jill Stein votes 

Michigan                                10,704                                             51,463

Pennsylvania                         70,638                                            49,170

Wisconsin                               27,257                                            30,980

Totals                                     108,599                                          131,613

In other words, if all of Stein’s votes had gone instead to Clinton, Clinton would have carried both Michigan and Wisconsin, and shaved Trump’s margin in Pennsylvania to a razor’s edge. That’s not a mathematical certainty, because some of Stein’s voters might have gone to Trump, but it’s a high probability.  Stein’s total vote in all three states exceeded Trump’s combined margin of victory in those states by 23,014 votes.

The recount effort now casts Stein in the media eye as a challenger to Trump’s victory.  That’s great PR for Stein, but it’s doubly ironic.  First, because Stein’s campaign probably handed Trump the victory in two of those three states.  Second, because if the recount were to flip the results, Stein would still be a loser and her nemesis, Clinton, the winner.

How did we get here?  The Clinton campaign’s passive acceptance of the shadowy election results — mirroring Gore’s pathetic cave-in to Bush in 2000 — stirred up intense resistance from below and within Democratic Party ranks.  Stein made herself the voice of that feeling, and the stunning success of her crowdfunding effort (to which I contributed a modest amount), raising millions in a few days, moved the Clinton establishment to chime in with a lukewarm “me too” gesture, all while predicting that nothing would change.

If the Democratic Party had any grass-roots fight in it, it would have taken the lead in demanding the recount.  It would have challenged the voter ID laws and numerous other barriers put in place by several states to minimize the Democratic vote.  But if the Democratic Party were that kind of party, Jill Stein would not have had the political breathing room to get on the ballot in the first place. At bottom, the blame lies not on Stein, the mosquito, but on the big fat donkey that kicked aside a winning candidate, the outsider Bernie Sanders, and picked a lame insider who was out of touch with the base and destined to lose.